The Assassination Of Margaret Thatcher - Hardcover

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2014: Bookended by stories about two very different kinds of home invasions, Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher is a daring but frustrating collection. There are only ten stories after all, a few of them quite spare, but all so chock-full of vivid detail and devilish wit that it leaves the reader wanting more. Standouts in the collection are the semi-autobiographical “Sorry to Disturb,” which illustrates the perils of being too polite, the spooky “Terminus” that exquisitely depicts the madness and longing of loss, and the tender “How Shall I Know You?” where a writer’s encounter with a needy child leads to a stark reminder of her own fragile state. Many of the stories mine the baser sides of humanity, but Mantel does it with a wink. At the conclusion of “Winter Break” a ghastly truth is revealed, and like the woman who witnesses it, we want to look away... but only until the next page. They don’t hand out Man Bookers like candy, and these stories further explain why Mantel has two on her mantel (so far). –Erin Kodicek

HILARY MANTEL is the author of thirteen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black and the memoir Giving Up the Ghost. Her two most recent novels, Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring up the Bodies, have both been awarded the Man Booker Prize—an unprecedented achievement.